Mimecast Acquires Elevate Security to Address Human Risk

Mimecast announced the acquisition of human risk management solutions specialist Elevate Security as part of its initiative to enhance digital workplace protection.

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The move by the London-based email and collaboration security firm aims to address evolving cyberthreats by offering insights into human behaviors and risks and empowering customers to fortify their digital environments, the company said.

The company did not disclose financial details of the acquisition.

The deal is expected to complement Mimecast’s 2020 acquisition of Chicago-based email security startup MessageControl, which focused on reinforcing protection against advanced phishing and impersonation attacks, particularly for users of productivity apps such as Microsoft 365.

By harnessing MessageControl’s machine learning technology to enhance defense against social engineering and human identity attacks, the integration further solidified Mimecast’s position in providing comprehensive email and collaboration security solutions, setting the stage for its acquisition of Elevate Security, the company said.

New Acquisition

David Raissipour, Mimecast’s chief technology and product officer, said people, communications and data are core to every organization, and artificial intelligence has accelerated cybercriminals’ ability to exploit these essential elements.

Elevate Security’s offerings are capable of assimilating human behavior and contextual data from diverse sources, using a precision risk-scoring algorithm to identify high-risk individuals.

Combined with Mimecast’s Awareness Training tools, this approach facilitates targeted interventions and training, effectively reducing overall risk and exposure, the company said. By leveraging risk intelligence and interventions, security teams can categorize high-risk individuals, drive behavior change, enforce policies, accelerate incident response, improve decision-making and automate protective controls for at-risk workers, the company said.

“Elevate Security prides itself on being one of the first human risk platforms to help organizations identify high-risk people and automate responses and safeguards, and we have long admired Mimecast’s commitment to changing user behavior to enhance protection,” said Robert Fly, CEO and co-founder of Elevate Security.

Mimecast assured existing Elevate Security customers that support for the platform will continue, and the integration process is underway. Mimecast expects to incorporate the new technology into Mimecast products over the upcoming quarters.

Mimecast has over 40,000 customers and offers solutions to counteract malicious cyberattacks, human errors and technological vulnerabilities. The company transforms email and collaboration security into a proactive defense mechanism, providing threat detection, brand protection, awareness training and data retention capabilities.